1 Million: A Milestone Years in the Making
A million is a hard number to picture. A million apples? That’s a lot of pie. A million trees? Give us a few more years. But one million people living within walking distance of a Giving Grove orchard? That one is worth stopping to think about. Read on to learn what 1 million people within walking distance really means!
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Contributed by Sarah Sikich, Director of Marketing & Communications
A Milestone Years in the Making
This year, The Giving Grove reached a goal we have been working toward for years: one million people now live within walking distance of a Giving Grove orchard. It is a milestone we are incredibly proud of, but the more I think about it, the more I realize the most important part of that sentence isn’t “one million.” It’s “within walking distance.” That means somewhere in a neighborhood, there is a fruit tree close enough for a child to watch it change through the seasons. There are berries growing near someone’s walk home. There is an orchard steward checking leaves for pests, neighbors gathering for a harvest, or someone picking a piece of fruit that didn’t have to travel hundreds of miles to reach them. And that orchard is there because a community wanted it there.
Over the past year, the Giving Grove network has grown significantly. Today, our network include:
More than 1,600 trained orchard stewards are helping care for these spaces in communities across the country. As those trees mature, they have the potential to produce 2.7 million pounds of fresh food every year, or approximately 8.2 million servings of fruits, nuts and berries annually. Over their lifetimes, the trees currently growing in Giving Grove orchards have the potential to produce an incredible 159 million servings of food.
It Starts with an Invitation
Those are big numbers, and we should celebrate them. But numbers can also make this work sound like something The Giving Grove did on its own, and that misses one of the most important parts of this milestone. We didn’t plant our way into one million people’s neighborhoods. We were invited.
Giving Grove orchards begin with communities. A neighborhood association might decide it wants to transform a vacant lot. A school might see an opportunity to connect students with the food they eat. A church might want to grow fresh food for its neighbors, or a community garden might imagine what could happen if its annual vegetable beds were joined by fruit trees that could produce for decades. Whatever the circumstances, the idea starts locally. Community members organize, identify a space, find people willing to care for the trees, and decide that an orchard belongs in their neighborhood. The job of our Giving Grove program managers is to help them make it happen.
An orchard planted FOR a community is fundamentally different from an orchard grown WITH one. The 26% increase in Giving Grove orchard sites over the past year means more communities raised their hands and said, “We want this here.” More people decided that fresh food should grow in their neighborhoods. More residents chose to become stewards, and more communities imagined a different relationship with the land around them and then did the work to create it.
Around the Corner and Down the Block
There is something wonderfully ordinary about the phrase “walking distance.” It doesn’t mean traveling across town. It doesn’t require a car or a special trip. It means around the corner, across from school, behind the church, or down the block. For one million people, a Giving Grove orchard is now part of that landscape.
Reaching one million people is worth celebrating! But those numbers are possible because hundreds of communities decided fruit trees belonged in their neighborhoods and thousands of people committed themselves to caring for them. Our role has been to listen to those communities, bring resources and knowledge to the table, and help their ideas take root.
This exciting milestone is not a finish line. There are more neighborhoods ready to grow food, more community leaders with ideas for underused spaces, and more people who deserve the opportunity to have fresh food growing close to home. As the Giving Grove network continues to grow, we want to keep growing the same way we got here: one invitation, one neighborhood and one orchard at a time.
About the Author
Sarah Sikich is Director of Marketing & Communications at The Giving Grove, where she leads storytelling, brand strategy, and national campaigns that amplify the power of community orchards. A longtime advocate for urban horticulture, she blends creativity and data-driven strategy to inspire action and celebrate the growing Giving Grove network.